Author: Bill

At the recent Enterprise 2.0 conference two people from the CIA gave a talk which included some information from a recently declassified “Simple Sabotage Field Manual” from the U.S. Strategic Services. In part, it lists some helpful advice on how to sabotage a business:

(1) Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
(2) Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of per­sonal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate “patriotic” comments.
(3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and considera­tion.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.
(4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
(5) Haggle over precise wordings of com­munications, minutes, resolutions.
(6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
(7) Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reason­able” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
(8) Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the juris­diction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.

All of this sounds very familiar.

California

Ophir Fire, 2 miles south of Oroville, 1,600 acres, 21 residences and 28 outbuildings lost. The spread of this fire has been stopped for now.

Jackson Fire, 20 miles north of Sacramento, 6,400 acres. Three firefighters from Sacramento Metro FD were entrapped while protecting a mobile home. Two took refuge in an engine and were not injured. The captain did not make it to the engine and received some second- and third-degree burn injuries.

41 Fire, 17 miles north of Fresno, 3,300 acres.

Indians Fire, 18 miles west of King City in a Los Padres National Forest wilderness area, 1,300 acres. There are reports that the fire made a big run yesterday.

Fire in Stockton. The fire started in brush along Interstate 5 and spread into a residential neighborhood, destroying destroying 20 condominium units, nine single-family homes and a triplex before it was controlled.

North Carolina

Evans Road Fire, 7 miles south of Creswekk, 40,195 acres, still spreading to the north and east. In addition to Hildreth’s Type 2 Incident Management Team, Custer’s NIMO (National Incident Management Organization) team is assigned. Firefighters are burning off wheat stubble fields out ahead of the fire.

Senator Elizabeth Dole is requesting that the White House reconsider a request for emergency assistance from FEMA. It was denied earlier.

The photo below from InciWeb is of the Evans Road fire near the actual Evans Road. The caption on InciWeb made note of the “irrigation hose”. Firefighters refer to it as “hose” or “fire hose”.

Norway

A fire in Froland has burned 10 cabins and 250 acres. During the night 49 people were evacuated. Firefighters were able to save a 150-year old church in the hamlet of Mykland which was completely surrounded by the fire Wednesday morning.

Canada

Virtually the entire population of Uranium City, Saskatchewan were flown out ahead of an advancing fire. The fire is one of 252 fires burning in Saskatchewan.

Tractor plows are heavily used in the southeast, but many firefighters in other parts of the country are not familiar with this type of equipment. A plow can rapidly construct a fireline 6-8′ wide in almost all fuel conditions as long as it is not steep or rocky–which eliminates much of the western United States. Some plows are mounted on the front of a dozer, but many are rear-mounted.

And then there is the substantial disturbance to the ground with which many jurisdictions have a problem. It can be difficult to rehab a tractor plow fireline. It’s not exactly a “light hand on the land”.

Here are a couple of photos I took while assigned to the Blackjack Bay fire on the Okeefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia and Florida in 2002.

The photo below show a rear-mounted unit that has wheels which can be raised when plowing operations begin.

The front of the plow. Those tires look like they lead a hard life.

Tractor plows have not changed a lot in the last 50 years. Here is drawing for patent #2990632 filed in 1958.

A 395-acre fire 31 miles south of Berlin is burning at a military base that was first established by the Prussian government in 1870. It was used as a training area for the Nazis, and later, Soviet tanks and airplanes, from 1935 until 1994. Unexploded munitions in the area require that all firefighting be done from roads or the air.

It reminds me of when we used to go to “fire school” for live fire training at Camp Pendleton in southern California. Instructors would light fires in grass or brush and then dispatch engines and hot shot crews to suppress them. The area was also used by the marines for training, and it was common for the fire to cause M-16 ammunition to explode. We were told that they were all blanks, but the empty cartridges whizzing past your head were, at best, extremely distracting while you were fighting a vegetation fire.